Vol. 4 – Ch. 13 – Interests

PART #1

There are monsters called Giants. They are over 7 meters tall, has long arms and slouched back. They have elongated heads and long beards. They often carry clubs or maces made of boulders and stones but they sometimes seen not using any weapons. Their arms are enough to substitute catapults and their sheer size threatens even other monsters such as orcs and ogres.

What makes the 7th Demon Lord different from this Giants was that he was not a mindless monster. He was a human being that never stopped growing and obtained a long life after eating one of the hearts of the Hydra King Ruxtorth.

Furthermore more, the Giants that only follow Titan King Erbernd were the ones that recognizes strength. It was an army based only on the strongest men.

And in face of those Giants, dwarves are more like ants. With their small stature, it would be relatively easy for Giants to step on dwarves that are half the size of human men.

At the South outposts where the 134th Garrison was stationed, the figure of the Titan King Erbernd walking pass the trees just below the cliff was something anyone would be alarmed off. The 7th Demon Lord was well known for his tenacity, wits and sheer inhumane raw strength. Unlike most Giants that does not posses any magic powers at all, Titan King Erbernd was still growing his.

Because of this, the south outpost quickly alerted the capitol in case the Giants were to attack. Though the walls are high there, Giants would still be able to climb them.

Once this news reached the army division of the Dwvargo Kingdom, the whole army immediately sortied in case an attack were to come. In the past, such attacks happens in surprise that many soldiers and adventurers died after the fight. Reports travelled slowly as the horses in this mountains aren't well trained to handle the rough terrain. Though they did employ aerial carriers but being small and easy to eat by large predators, it became useless overtime as most messages would come later or never arrive at all.

Now, thanks to the communication device that was provided by Kyoushiro Kagami, reports from all outposts came in fast and swift actions would be applied immediately before any disaster strikes.

The walls was quickly filled with musket bearing soldiers. Adventurers went out of the walls to prepare the smaller monsters attacks in case another surge of monsters were to come if the Giants were to attack.

Yuuya Mizushima sighed as he felt his chest tightened. The anxiety he was feeling when he heard about the news of the 7th Demon Lord being sighted outside the South outpost caused his stomach to churn. Though he resisted to vomit the contents of his stomach, the effects of the alcohol were still present in his body. It didn't made him brave or anything else for that matter.

He held the small knives in both hands as tightly as he could as if trying to force the fear inside him from welling up.

"Fuuu....calm down.... I'm a hero.... I can do this"

Yuuya Mizushima chanted so numerous times to fool himself into doing something.

"Oi! Yuuya!"

It was that Kouga Misumi came. His aloof appearance was gone and was replaced by a drunken smile that had still some marks of vomit streaming down his neck. He didn't seemed to have washed and neither was he sober.

Kouga Misumi walked to Yuuya Mizushima like he always do.

"K-Kouga.... you're still drunk?"

"Huh? What's the problem if I'm a little drunk? It's not like I can't fight while I'm drunk!! I'm a hero too! Kagami isn't the only one that can kill a Demon Lord or two!!!"

Kouga Misumi was drunk. Though his speech wasn't slurred, his eyes didn't seemed to be focused right now. He was chanting "I'm a hero too!!" again and again like madman on drugs. Yuuya Mizushima could look at his half brother with sorry filled eyes.

"K-Kouga! Calm down!"

"What?! How dare you shout at me?! I'm you're brother!"

"I-I'm sorry but this is really isn't the right place to—"

Yuuya Mizushima couldn't finish what he said when the alarm bells went off. The sounds of muskets firing and the shrieks and growls of monsters attacking from all sides. Yuuya Mizushima quickly changed his gears and ran off to the front lines to help the Adventurers.

Seeing Yuuya Mizushima ran off like that in a hurry, disregarding Kouga Misumi's situation, the half brother that was left showed a pissed off look on his face as he readied his weapon.

"Damn brat, who does he think he is? He's just the son of a whore"

Kouga Misumi cursed as his younger brother's attitude towards him and walked back to the city after taking out another bottle of ale from his magic bag.

—

The Giants aren't an intelligent race. In fact, they have a rule that only the strong leads. However, if basing on instincts alone, the Giants will immediately act. The same for looking for food.

The Giants that lived at the southeast part of the mountain range, around roughly 37 kilometers away from the south outpost, were doing their usual thing.

*Gruoooooh!!!*

Fighting.

Large tree trunks that act as clubs clashed. Hit after hit made the audience roared in excitement. Those who see blood spraying around as the clubs hits the flesh of each opponent, the louder the place was.

Right now, there are two giants fighting at the center, a makeshift arena made by the Giants themselves. Boulders act as the boundary of the arena and whoever steps over it or dies loses.

The fight as a duel to the death. The Giants that doesn't care if one of them dies, just cheered on the one that was winning.

When the other one fell on one knee, the other took advantage of it and swung down it's thick club down on the other one's head. The crunchy noise that came after the blood splatter was muffled by the roars of audience.

Another weak giant died meant another food on the table. Since Giants are relatively big, their stomachs was also just as large. Meaning, their appetite goes beyond consuming a village of humans. A single giant can devour two village worth of humans including cattle and harvest.

As the corpse was taken away by a giant with a butcher knife made of stone on it's waste, the winner raised his arms up high. The Giants cheered for the winner once more.

And then....

*Gruoohh!!!*

Another battle starts. This was the way of the Giants. This was also the cause for many animals and monsters to run away to different directions in fear of the hunger of Giants.

"Oh? Looks like these idiots are doing that thing again"

Titan King Erbernd just arrived. He looks down at the giant's settlement with a smirk on his face. He has been living with the Giants for a long time now so he knows the nature of these monsters. They fight, eat, sleep and then fight again. They were like battle junkies only in their race. After all, though it often happens, they only fight strong individuals sometimes.

If the leader told them to attack a city, they would. If the leader told them to fight to the death, they would. That's because how giants are. A threat not only to others but to themselves as well.

The 7th Demon Lord enjoys a good bout himself. But the way the Giants do it was not something Titan King Erbernd enjoys. It wasn't about the battle that makes him unable to do the same thing, it was more like he dislikes how mindless the giants fight. It doesn't have the good feel of a battle. It was just mindless slaughter.

As such, when such battle between Giants happen, he only watch. If another giant challenged him, he would just beat that one down and rest. Everyone else can do what they want.

"As expected, mindless barbarians to the end"

"Oh? Well if it isn't the ice queen herself. Have you finally come to your senses and decided to become my woman?"

The 3rd Demon Lord herself made an appearance.

"Oh my, have the Titan King himself had his brain shrunk by staying with these mindless meat sacks?"

A cold smile hidden upon her icy white fan. Titan King Erbernd roars a loud laugh as he was rejected once more by the woman he was trying to get for so many years now.

"Gahahahahaha!!! You're still like before Ice Queen. If only I hadn't lost that fight, you would've been mine"

A dangerous smile flashed on the Titan King's beardy face. The fight that he was talking about was when he was still around the size of a human. He went challenging the Demon Lords starting from the 8th Demon Lord down to the 3rd Demon Lord. However, he couldn't pass the limitations of a human back then even though he had devoured one of the Hydra King's heart.

The battle where the Titan King proposed a challenge against Lady Snow was a fight to have the hand of the fairest lady of the land. Naturally, only the most dumbest of fools would go to the coldest place in this world just to challenge a Demon Lord but the Titan King was different.

When a town where he was staying at was attacked by the minions of the 3rd Demon Lord, he didn't felt fear but rather, the moment he saw her figure freezing even the souls of the innocent in her wake, he found her the most beautiful woman in the whole world. His obsession only began after he last the fight against Lady Snow.

"Fufufu, you will never win o Titan King. A woman such as I can only deserve the best and I do mean only the best"

It wasn't like Lady Snow was looking for a spouse. For an ice spirit herself, the thing called love was nothing but a fragile ice that melts during the spring. For her, it's an unneeded emotion that could only make her look human.

She was Demon Lord, a being that was created by this world. She was born more free than a simple ice sprite, as such, she does whatever she does and gets whatever she wants as she is free.

The Titan King Erbernd agreed with Lady Snow's words with a fierce nod. "True! That's true!!" he mutters with a proud smile.

"Anyways, I did not come here to see you Titan King. I have some news to tell you"

"That so? Well, if it's bad news I don't want to listen. I only need good news"

"Then the good news is, a new Demon Lord is born"

As soon as he heard that part, Titan King Erbernd suddenly looked disinterested.

"A new one? That's nothing new. Aren't there 13 of us already?"

"Nay, we've lost two actually"

Titan King Erbernd paused all of a sudden.

"What?"

"It is true. The 9th and 12th Demon Lord has been slain. A hero took their lives"

Hero, it's a being that hasn't appeared since the 1st Demon Lord. For the Titan King Erbernd, such being has never been a point of interest to him. After all, heroes are only from bits of legends, exaggerated by the past story tellers in order make the children believe that there is hope in this world.

Once as a human, Titan King Erbernd also wanted to be a hero but thinking that something like only comes from legends, he stopped trying to become a hero and did whatever he wished to instead. The training he did as a child did served it's purpose in helping him becoming strong but as his size became that of a monster, being a Demon Lord felt more better than becoming a hero.

Still, Titan King Erbernd did not imagined that two Demon Lords, that's at least hundreds of years old, could die like that.

"Was that hero strong?"

"Hmm... As human, no. The amount of time he was close to death was quite high. Especially when he fought against Demon Lord Trause. However, after becoming a Demon Lord, he easy took down the 12th Demon Lord"

At that moment, Titan King Erbernd was struck by lightning. The new Demon Lord was actually a hero that had defeated two Demon Lords. In other words, he was a being that contradicts the sides of being a Demon Lord and a Hero.

"That hero you speak.... don't tell me he is the new Demon Lord?"

"Precisely"

It was like that. There was no impossibility in this world. Unless the world itself decided what you are, it would let one turned into two different things. Titan King Erbernd believed that his ever growing size was made on purpose by the world. Because if one were to think about it, there are one too many Demon Lords with so little of the heroes. When the monsters in this worlds never ends, no help came even after 500 years.

Only the first hero was able to fight the 1st Demon Lord and lived to eradicated about half of the population of monsters in his time. Since then, the monsters grew larger and larger and fewer countries even became less.

Will this new Demon Lord bring about change in this world? Or will he be a threat? Titan King Erbernd feels the chills of excitement as he imagines a battle against this strong Hero Demon Lord person.

Not missing the pure excitement on the Titan King Erbernd's face, Lady Snow chuckled.

"Fufufu, as I have expected. You would even dare to challenge him"

"Hah! Of course I would! This is a hero we're talking about!! A Demon Lord needs to fight a Hero!! It's written in legends!"

Just how a child gets excited from a new toy, the Titan King Erbernd raised his voice. His laughter echoed through the forest as his large lungs exhaled strongly.

"Gahahahahaha!!! I've been waiting for a good battle for a long time!! I thank the Ice Queen for giving me such good news!"

"Fufufu, I do not mind you being happy and all that. But you are not the only that had wished to fight such person"

"Oh? who else wants a piece of that hero?"

When asked, Lady Snow brings down her fan and uncovers her face. The fairest lady of the land showed her beautiful smile that made the Titan King Erbernd stop for a moment. In the moment that the Titan King Erbernd was lovestruck, Lady Snow's lips parted.

"The 1st Demon Lord"

PART #2

Ambrosia is now one of the busiest countries in the world. The moment it's doors became open to almost anyone, nearly every living civilians in this world became interested in entering this kingdom.

With it's remarkable and eerily terrifying structures as well as the protective barriers set up both inside and outside the kingdom, it was only normal for most people to think that Ambrosia was the safest place in this world.

Monsters are taken down by the sentries known as the Magic Iron golems. The Black Soldiers goes around dealing with foreign aid as per Queen Arianne Aurolius's orders. Now both Travestin Kingdom and Paracellumn Kingdom was receiving military aid from Ambrosia.

Defense weaponry like the cannons on top of the spires of Ambrosia's outside walls weren't placed outside territory. It wasn't that they didn't want to give other nations such defense capabilities, rather the only person that could build such a thing was Kyoushiro Kagami only.

Normally a ruler may order a hero to do things for the sake of the nation. That includes foreign aid and giving other nations the same defense weaponry as Ambrosia. However, since Kyoushiro Kagami was treated and seen as a king in Ambrosia, even if other nation were to force Arianne to make Kyoushiro Kagami do as the other nations orders, it would up to the person himself if he was willing to do so.

Though after the mess at the parade, it would normally be a dark and heavy atmosphere. People would go and complain to the ruler about the behavior of the hero and asked for him to be judged fairly.

But in contrast to that, it was as if the incident that happened, never even existed at all. The streets were flourishing, the buildings were being occupied and bought by numerous families, merchants doing their best to make deals with the other merchants inside Ambrosia and even Adventurers were free to roam and walk around like a tourist.

There were smiles instead of frowns. Moreover, even if there were some people that were dissatisfied with Demon-Spawns around the city, the Magic Iron golems would take care of it.

As such, the city outside the castle was relatively peaceful. There were no mess and neither were crimes. It was even hard to imagine there would be some slums around but compared to other cities, small houses that were left by it's previous owners were given to those people who could afford to by an apartment room.

Now, it was like every city on earth, bustling yet peaceful.

"Mommy, let's go there!"

"Ah, Clara wait!"

In one part of the city where an amusement park was built for the sake of recreation or rather, forcibly built by the worker golems, which had the plans drawn up by Kyoushiro Kagami himself, inscribed inside them, built. It had the complete set of rides that most of the ones on earth has. Rollercoasters, Ferris wheels, merry-go-rounds and so on.

It was kind of hard to understand why Kyoushiro Kagami planned to build such a thing in the first place. Since, there was hardly enough time to play around in this kind of world where monsters roam almost everywhere.

Nevertheless, it did served it's purpose. Now, it is one of the many attractions of the city where even commoners enjoys. Even nobles who came to play couldn't complain standing in line on a ride. It was truly like on earth where there was no wall that divides people.

Lucinda has brought the children to this amusement park in order to forget what happened. After the talk they had with Corralia and Elyria after the incident, Lucinda wanted to let the kids enjoy some time for themselves to forget that horrible incident.

Naturally, the kids who have never been to such place felt it was like paradise. Clara, Dahlia, Rea and Lea all went choosing the rides they want to ride with smiles on their faces. They had candied apples and cotton candies in their hands as well as flower crowns on their heads. A signature souvenir of the amusement park.

Clara was pointing at the rollercoaster when Lucinda was standing behind with Niya behind her with a parasol abover their hands. Bodyguard duties were left to the Black army soldiers. Though unlike the usual mismatched armors they wore in the army, they were wearing blacksuits for this occasion.

Some even liked wearing them and puffed their chest with pride. It seems that even in another world, the feel of wearing a black suit while guarding a high profile celebrity was romance.

"Your highness, please settle down. The guards will properly look over her highness princess Clara"

Niya adviced Lucinda not to overexert herself and let the bodyguards do their job. Then, hearing Niya's words one bodyguard went to chase over the kids who ran up to get in line to ride the rollercoaster.

Lucinda sighs. Her mind is still preoccupied. It was about the talk that she and the others had with Corralia and Elyria. About what happened to Kyoushiro and the others back in Paracellumn.

Lucinda was bothered by the fact that Kyoushiro turning into a Demon Lord might cause some dissatisfaction among the allies. There were already some nobles fearing Kyoushiro and Ambrosia's power becoming too much to handle by other nations. Although it was good in times like this where their common enemies were Demon Lords and monsters, it wouldn't be as good as now once the Demon Lord disappeared.

Other nation rulers, decided to have Kyoushiro Kagami be monitored by each respective race, acting as a support or companion for Kyoushiro while he goes around settling wars against monsters and helping other places by connecting them via [Gate].

Corralia and Elyria were chosen as Kyoushiro Kagami's watcher. In case something like what the incident in the parade happened, they would try and calm down Kyoushiro Kagami as much as they could.